By David Melly & Paul Hof-Mahoney

The 2026 World Athletics Ultimate Championship is officially less than 24 hours away! As the athletes descend on Budapest and eat their last few pre-race meals, we’re serving up a full event-by-event preview of all the action over three days of competition.

If you missed our full women’s preview earlier today, you can read that here. On the men’s side, there’s plenty to look forward to as well, led by a classic U.S.-Jamaican matchup in the 100m between Kenny Bednarek and Oblique Seville, an ambitious double by Rai Benjamin ending in a reunion with his 400m hurdles rivals Alison dos Santos and Karsten Warholm, and an all-star 1500m featuring Cole Hocker, Josh Kerr, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and much, much more.

CITIUS MAG will have boots on the ground in Hungary delivering live coverage, athlete interviews, and analysis in daily post-meet live shows. Make sure you’re subscribed and tuned in to the CITIUS YouTube channel as well as following us on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky for updates.

Full Schedule (All Times E.T.)

Friday, September 11th:

• 1:08 p.m. – Mixed 4x100m Relay (Final)
• 1:13 p.m. – Women’s High Jump (Final)
• 1:19 p.m. – Men’s 400m (Semifinal)
• 1:23 p.m. – Men’s Hammer Throw (Final)
• 1:38 p.m. – Women’s 400m (Semifinal)
• 2:04 p.m. – Women’s 100m Hurdles (Semifinal)
• 2:08 p.m. – Men’s Pole Vault (Final)
• 2:21 p.m. – Men’s 110m Hurdles (Semifinal)
• 2:36 p.m. – Men’s 5000m (Final)
• 2:53 p.m. – Women’s Long Jump (Final)
• 2:57 p.m. – Women’s 800m (Semifinal)
• 3:20 p.m. – Women’s 100m Hurdles (Final)
• 3:49 p.m. – Men’s 110m Hurdles (Final)

Saturday, September 12

• 12:08 p.m. – Women’s 400m (Final)
• 12:13 p.m. – Women’s Javelin Throw (Final)
• 12:18 p.m. – Men’s 400m (Final)
• 12:26 p.m. – Men’s 800m (Semifinal)
• 12:43 p.m. – Women’s Pole Vault (Final)
• 12:46 p.m. – Women’s 400m Hurdles (Semifinal)
• 1:04 p.m. – Women’s 100m (Semifinal)
• 1:21 p.m. – Men’s 100m (Semifinal)
• 1:36 p.m. – Women’s 1500m (Final)
• 1:44 p.m. – Men’s Long Jump (Final)
• 1:57 p.m. – Men’s 400m Hurdles (Semifinal)
• 2:18 p.m. – Women’s 800m (Final)
• 2:38 p.m. – Women’s 100m (Final)
• 2:49 p.m. – Men’s 100m (Final)

Sunday, September 13

• 12:08 p.m. – Women’s 400m Hurdles (Final)
• 12:13 p.m. – Men’s Javelin Throw (Final)
• 12:18 p.m. – Men’s 200m (Semifinal)
• 12:36 p.m. – Men’s 400m Hurdles (Final)
• 12:44 p.m. – Women’s 200m (Semifinal)
• 1:04 p.m. – Men’s High Jump (Final)
• 1:10 p.m. – Women’s 5000m (Final)
• 1:34 p.m. – Women’s Triple Jump (Final)
• 1:41 p.m. – Men’s 800m (Final)
• 1:53 p.m. – Mixed 4x400m Relay (Final)
• 2:12 p.m. – Men’s 1500m (Final)
• 2:38 p.m. – Men’s 200m (Final)
• 2:49 p.m. – Women’s 200m (Final)

How To Watch Live:

Friday, September 11: 1–4 p.m. E.T.
Watch on: Peacock, NBCSN

Saturday, September 12: 12–3 p.m. E.T.

Watch on: Peacock, NBCSN

Sunday, September 13: 12–3 p.m. E.T.

Watch on: Peacock, NBC

Here’s our men’s event-by-event preview for all the action going down in Budapest over the weekend.

Men’s Sprints

100m: It’s highly possible that this race comes down to two men: Kenny Bednarek and Oblique Seville. Across six career matchups, they’re 3-3 head to head, but Bednarek won their first three, with Seville taking their three most recent meetings, including both races this year. In August, the Jamaican beat the American, 9.83 to 9.87 in Silesia and then came back to decisively win the Diamond League final sans Bednarek (who ran the 200m).

Overall, it seems like Seville is trending in the right direction at the right time after picking up a few losses early in the season, but Bednarek has looked phenomenal in his last few outings in the 200m, so it’ll be a fair fight. The other two names most worth mentioning are Commonwealth Games champ Emmanuel Eseme, who took second behind Seville in Brussels, and NCAA champ Kanyinsola Ajayi, the last man to beat Seville straight-up this year. It does seem like perhaps Ajayi’s long summer may be catching up to him, but he did finish third in Brussels in 9.97 and won a lower-key meet in Bellinzona the week before that in 9.91.

Seville, as the World champion and the fastest seed, will have the largest target on his back, but he’s looked the best in recent weeks. If the race is won close to 9.80, he’s the best-positioned to capitalize. If conditions are less favorable, a more unpredictable race could favor someone like Americans Trayvon Bromell and Christian Coleman or Jamaican Ackeem Blake, who’ve shown the ability to perform in high-pressure situations but haven’t racked up wins on the circuit this season.

200m: Here, Bednarek is the heavy favorite. Olympic champ Letsile Tebogo has the talent to win, but Tebogo has rarely been at his best during the 2026 season and only finished fourth in the DL final. The most consistent guy on the circuit besides Bendarek has been Sinesipho Dambile of South Africa, also the Commonwealth Games champ, who’s settled fairly solidly into “best of the rest” status. Tebogo did beat Dambile in Lausanne less than a month ago, but Dambile got revenge in Brussels.

Three guys have run under 19.7 this year, but only one of them—Bednarek—is competing in Budapest. With the withdrawal of Noah Lyles, the only two entrants on the top-ten all-time list are Bednarek and Tebogo. Overall, this race should be straightforward: short of Tebogo rediscovering his 2024 form, Bednarek will be tough to beat absent an injury or serious misstep.

400m: It would be a shock for anyone not named Collen Kebinatshipi to take the win here, but you can never fully count out Rai Benjamin. Kebinatshipi has been on another level for most of this season, breaking 44 seconds in five of his last six outings, and it feels more likely that he’d get close to Wayde van Niekerk’s world record than finish second. Benjamin is taking on an ambitious double in the 400m and 400H, with four races in three days on his docket, so he may be more inclined to play it safe with the semis of the hurdles later the same evening.

In Brussels, the most impressive run behind Kebinatshipi’s DL record belonged to Jereem Richards, who got out like a rocket in lane eight and hung on for a new PB of 43.68. Richards owns two global medals outdoors and is the 2022 World Indoor champ, and it’s a great sign that he’s still got his best stuff at 32 years old. He’ll battle it out with Jacory Patterson and Chris Bailey, who both finished under 44 seconds in the same race. Guys with high ceilings who haven’t quite been there these past few weeks include Zathiki Nene, who ran his 43.89 season’s best back in June, and European champ Matthew Hudson-Smith, who owns a 43.44 PB but just a 44.02 SB. Plus, you never know what Olympic medalist Muzala Samukonga—who’s on the entry list but hasn’t raced since finishing sixth at Commonwealths—has up his sleeve.

110mH: It’s crazy to consider that 20-year-old NCAA champ Ja’Kobe Tharp has been both the best and most consistent hurdler on the circuit all summer, but the stats don’t lie. With the exception of one hit hurdle and 8th-place finish in Lausanne, Tharp has won five of his last six races, including the Diamond League final featuring many of the same names on this start list. At his best, the world record holder is… well, the world record holder, and despite a long season that began back in January, he’s still close to top form most days.

The biggest threat to Tharp comes in the form of Jamal Britt, who’s been just as consistent all year but hasn’t won as much recently. Britt does have five DL victories this season, and beat Tharp at the Pre Classic, but he’s also had one or two more duds. What is a near-certainty is that among the quartet of Tharp, Britt, Trey Cunningham, and reigning World champ Cordell Tinch, one of the Americans will emerge victorious, as Team USA has won 15 of the last 16 Diamond League 110H races. If the title does go to international hands, the most likely candidate is European champ and Zurich winner Jason Joseph, who has just a 13.11 season’s best but a good knack for winning big races.

400mH: The Big Three reunite for the first time since Alison dos Santos’s world-record run in Zurich. The Brazilian is now decisively the man to beat, but Rai Benjamin is the reigning World/Olympic champion for a reason. Can Benjamin hang with dos Santos on tired legs, however? That may be the difference here. Since the World final in 2023, Benjamin has lost exactly one 400m hurdles race, and the guy that beat him (at last year’s Pre Classic) was, of course, dos Santos.

It’s always possible that the Karsten Warholm Revenge Tour begins in Budapest, the site of his 2023 World title, but recent results don’t indicate that is likely. Warholm and dos Santos have raced five times in 2026, with dos Santos winning all five. The Norwegian is the second fastest man in the world this year at 46.52, but he took second behind dos Santos in that race. If Benjamin is up to the task of taking dos Santos all the way to the line, it could end up that dos Santos’s 45.80 doesn’t even survive the year, but unless Benjamin pulls off one of the most impressive doubles in track and field history, it’ll probably be dos Santos atop the all-time list either way.

Men’s Distance

800m: After a more unpredictable beginning to the season, the men’s 800m has once again turned into the Emmanuel Wanyonyi Show as Cooper Lutkenhaus returns to high school and the reigning World/Olympic champ finds his form. Wanyonyi, who’s not all that much older than Lutkenhaus at 22, is riding a three-race win streak against many of the same guys he’ll face in Budapest. His last two races have also been under 1:42, and there’s only four athletes in the field who’ve been in that territory before, and only three have done so this season.

Along with Wanyonyi, Djamel Sedjati has produced his best stuff at the tail end of this season, finishing second behind the Kenyan in all three DLs. 2023 World champ Marco Arop has been less consistent, running 1:41.84 all by himself in Canada back in June but finishing fourth in two late-summer Diamond Leagues. Arop is usually one of the guys you can count on to make the pace honest, but if he’s concerned about his fitness, it may fall to someone else. Hesitation at the front could, in turn, open the door for a kicker’s race and surprise results from someone like reformed front-runner Brandon Miller or European champ Mark English.

1500m: Everyone you could possibly want to be in this race is on the start line, as Josh Kerr returns to the track for the first time since his Commonwealth Games victory. There have been rumors in Norwegian media about Jakob Ingebrigtsen contesting only the 5000m, but since the longer race is earlier in the program, we may not know for sure what Ingebrigtsen’s plans are (and he himself may be waiting to see how his body feels after the first race).

Alongside newly-crowned Diamond League champ Cam Myers are the last six global champions: Timothy Cheruiyot (2019), Ingebrigtsen (2021), Jake Wightman (2022), Kerr (2023), Cole Hocker (2024), and Isaac Nader (2025). Throw in Ethan Strand and Yared Nuguse, who both won Diamond Leagues earlier this season, and this event is about as stacked as can be. So much so that 3:27 runners Azeddine Habz and Phanuel Koech almost feel like afterthoughts, and Olympic fifth-placer Hobbs Kessler is decidedly in the bottom half of this race, at least on paper.

With no rabbit, the race could play out dozens of ways and tactics will be as important as pure fitness. Under normal conditions, Ingebrigtsen could be relied upon to string out the field early, but in his journey back from injury, he’s yet to display a consistent race strategy. Given Kerr’s supreme confidence and mid-season fitness, it feels likely he tries to blow the doors off the place from 400m or even 600m out, but when Kerr won his World title in Budapest he didn’t hit the front until 180m to go, so who knows. If it does come down to a many-way final-lap battle, like so many championship 1500ms do, it’s impossible to count out pretty much anybody in this race, particularly one of the Americans. And if the pack is tight, Koech’s physicality could throw one or more of his rivals off their rhythm or even knock them to the track.

With the 1500m near the end of the program on Sunday, meet organizers are betting that this showdown will send World Ultimates off with a bang. And given the field assembled, it’s hard to imagine them being wrong.

5000m: Before Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Cole Hocker even get to Sunday, they’ll first have to survive Friday’s 5000m final. With no pacers and a whole bunch of strong kickers in the field, it’s highly probable that this one will be a tactical affair from the gun, leaving things down to a grueling final mile or even a blistering last lap.

In an impressive indicator of how much American distance running has risen to prominence on the global scene, five of the 12 starters come from Team USA, compared with two Kenyans and two Ethiopians. Hocker, the reigning World champ, will not only have to beat Ingebrigtsen, he’ll also have to contend with Graham Blanks, Parker Wolfe, Nico Young, and Grant Fisher. Of that group, Wolfe and Fisher have claimed Diamond League wins this year (although Wolfe’s pair were in the 3000m and two mile), but Blanks and Young ran their best times of the season in the Diamond League final. It would be particularly sweet for Blanks to break through now after finishing between second and sixth in six different DL races this season, but if anyone of that group has the most untapped potential, it might be the 23-year-old hard-kicking Wolfe.

Ethiopian Addisu Yihune comes in on top by world ranking with two DL victories of his own under his belt, but Yihune’s championship creds are fairly light. He’s the 2022 World U20 champ over 5000m but he only finished 14th in the Olympic final, eighth in the 3000m at World Indoors this year, and didn’t run Worlds last summer. Aussie Ky Robinson and Australian Biniam Mehary are the top returners from last year’s Worlds final behind Hocker, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively. Robinson won the Commonwealth Games 10,000m and took second in the 5000m earlier this summer, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him mixing it up near the front of another championship-style race.

Men’s Field Events

Pole vault: One of the meet’s biggest question marks is looming over this event as Ultimate Championships anthem artist/world record holder Mondo Duplantis pulled out of the Diamond League Final during warmups last week, frustratedly citing leg soreness that’s been lingering since London. When he’s jumped recently, the results have still been typical Mondo stuff, more or less: 6.15m to win a fourth consecutive European title and at least 6.20m in Lausanne, Silesia and Zurich, the first three-meet stretch of that nature in history. He clearly doesn’t need to be 100% to still jump better than anyone ever has, but he’s got to at least make it to the runway.

While Duplantis’s status is up in the air (no pun intended), Manolo Karalis doesn’t have to worry about that at all. The 26-year-old Greek vaulter has cleared 6m in five competitions on the trot, finishing runner-up to Duplantis in the first four before claiming the win in Brussels in his absence. If Karalis’s friend and longtime rival decides to stick to the mic this weekend, the second-best man in the event’s history is probably a shoo-in to claim his first “global title” (if we can call it that). If the pair do go head-to-head, however, Karalis has never been in a better position to pick up his first win over Duplantis since the 2018 World Indoor Championships, potentially ending a streak of 42 meets where Mondo has bested Manolo.